


The Butterfly Effect

by BromeliadLucy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Barely Marvel if i'm honest, F/M, marvel AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BromeliadLucy/pseuds/BromeliadLucy
Summary: Oh I don't know. It's barely Marvel except in the names and appearances. Just a bit of fluff.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have never: been to Dubai, been to Bali, or scuba dived. I apologise to anyone who's done any of these things and spots the glaring errors.
> 
> To everyone else, I just apologise generally for this fic.

So they say that when a butterfly flaps its wings in New Mexico, it causes a hurricane in China.

Another way to put that: when you go shopping in London, you fall in love in Bali.

\--

_I’d never have fallen in love if it wasn’t for that new year’s resolution._

_No, wait, that’s not the start, let’s begin again. It all started when there was nothing on at the cinema._

_No, let’s go back another stage… See when that chaos butterfly started flapping its wings._

I’m only in love, because he cheated. No not _him_ , not the guy I’m in love with now. The other guy. The first one. The creep, the jerk I stayed with too long because I was afraid of everything. The guy who, I can see now, belittled me, and treated me like crap. I’m in love with _this_ guy now, because of _that_ guy. Maybe I should thank him?

So, let’s start at the beginning. The day I finished my Christmas shopping too early. Maybe, just maybe, if I’d taken longer, things would have been different. There’s that butterfly flapping its wings. I’d told Brock I’d be out of the house all day, I was going to go tackle all my Christmas shopping in one day, the first of December, maybe catch a film after to celebrate, get home around 10 at night. That was the plan. Then, _flap flap flutter_ … I was on a roll, I had half the shopping done before I stopped for coffee. Had a cake to celebrate, made a list, set off for the other half. I was like a demon, in and out of the shops, that for Mum, that for Dad, that and that and that for Brock, because, well, we were in love, weren’t we?

By lunchtime I was done, hands full of bags, purse empty of money. Checked the cinema times, nothing on for two hours, decided to go home. Maybe if there’d been a good film on…? But the wings were fluttering, so I was on the Tube, off the Tube, up the road, round the corner, in the front door, and… stop. Stare. Drop the bags on the floor. Drop my jaw on the floor. The Christmas tree lights were reflected off the naked skin of my boyfriend and my next-door neighbour, going at it on the couch. It felt like we all froze for years, staring aghast, before Brock broke the spell.

“What the… you said… you were going to be back late? You’re early!”

Ah yes, my fault. Damn me and my efficiency, I didn’t give the poor man time to finish. Damn that butterfly. No, hang on… “Screw you Brock!”

I ran upstairs, shut myself in the bedroom, heard mumblings and doors closing downstairs, footsteps coming upstairs. I was numb. I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to shout, I just wanted this not to be. The scary thing was, I didn’t care that much.

The door opened, in he came, his face a mixture of sheepish guilt and arrogant self-justification. I had a sudden urge to batter him over the head with something hard. 

“You were early.” That was his defence, it seems.

“You were screwing Sharon.” That’s my counter-attack.

I saw his face change, the guilt fading and that cock-sure arrogance coming up. God, how had I been so dumb for so long? The number of times I’d apologised for getting things wrong, I’d back-tracked, backed down, backed off. Not this time. I refuse to believe that ‘shopping efficiently’ is as sinful as ‘banging the neighbour’.

“Babe, she came on to me, what can I say? And let’s be honest, you’ve gained weight recently, you’ve got… comfy. I’ve got needs!”

I didn’t respond. Mostly because I was torn between laughing at his ridiculousness, screaming at his stupidity, or going back to the battering him to death. But for once, I didn’t want to apologise. Not this time, no way, no how.

“Oh Brock, just fuck right off, ok?” And then I got up and turned my back and left him spluttering and unsure for the first time in a long time. I just didn’t care, let Sharon have him, him and his crappy cooking and his habit of picking his toenails in public. Why the hell had I stayed? I started pulling clothes out of drawers, throwing them into a suitcase, paused for a moment, was that a flutter of wings I saw out of the corner of my eye?

“I’m going, I’ll collect my stuff some other time. You’re a shit, and it’s over. And that feels _great_ to say!” I almost laughed in glee, I really couldn’t decide why I hadn’t done this before. All those petty little things he’d done, they added up, weighed me down. I’d have kissed Sharon for doing something so big that finally I saw the light. I say I would have kissed her, but I wouldn’t. I knew where she’d been.

So that was why I was back living with Nat. I’d always technically been her housemate, I’d just spent way too long at Brock’s. And that was why, one month later, just after midnight on January 1st, we made our new year’s resolutions together.

“I’m going to dye my hair red!”

“That’s not a resolution Nat, that’s a half-hour job in the bathroom, that’s not life changing!”

“OK, fine, I’m going to go back to ballet classes. And I’m going to learn Russian. Da!”

We were, it’s possible, a little bit drunk.

“I’m going to… I don’t know. I’m going to…”

“You need to do something that you’d never have done with Brock. Something he’d have said ‘you’re not that person’ about. God! I am so glad you’ve finally seen the truth about that jerk, it’s not like I haven’t said it before!” Most of the last month’s conversations had involved Nat pointing out how right she’d been about him. Annoying thing was, she _was_ right.

“Yeah. He always made me believe I was too scared to do anything adventurous, but it was him, he’s a coward! I can do _anything_!”

Which is why, mid-afternoon on January 1st, my hungover-self checked my emails and found a booking for ten days scuba diving in Bali. Thanks, drunk me. And thanks, chaos butterfly, for setting me off down another path. What if I’d resolved to work with orphans in Kathmandu? See the sights in New Zealand? Recycle more? Where would I be now? Not in love, that’s for sure.

So that’s where it began. With Christmas speed-shopping which led to cheating-awareness which led to drinking, which led to Bali. Funny how these things turn out, right?

March 17th, 6am, checking in. Suitcase, passport, ticket, boarding card, nerves, all present and correct. 22 hours, including six hours waiting in Dubai. Maybe Brock was right, what the hell was I doing here? And why did you always have to check in so damn early, what were you supposed to do now? I browsed Duty Free, bought a magazine, some chocolate, tried on sunglasses then put them down, god it was boring. Finally, they called my flight, just as I was trying to decide if I wanted those sunglasses after all. Boarding pass, seat number, down the tunnel, up the steps, into my seat. Aisle seat, no window, no view… oh, wait… ok, the view might not involve sky or clouds or tiny little cities from up high, but hello, that was quite a view. Broad shoulders, small waist, good biceps, hell yes, good biceps, lifting something into the overhead locker, then turning around and, oh, yes, stubble, blue-grey eyes, wait, was I staring?!

“Sorry, I’m sitting here,” pointing at the aisle seat.

“Ah sorry, nearly finished,” WindowSeatMan shoved his last thing into the locker, squeezed himself into a seat with a wide grin. I was still staring, damn, how do you stop doing that again? I blinked, twice, probably looking slightly idiotic, threw myself into a seat, rucksack under the seat in front, seatbelt on, let’s read the ‘how to not die in a plane crash by rolling into a ball’ card, let’s not peer sideways at his hands on his thighs, let’s not think like that, nope.

Seats and tables in upright positions, watch the cabin crew do the safety announcements. Where’s the ‘in the event of a sudden rush of lust, please exit your sanity through the front and rear doors, leaving all adult behaviour behind. Do not stop to pick up your brain, you won’t need it…’?

Then the cabin crew are sitting down and the engines are starting and _oh god I’d forgotten that I hate to fly why did I buy this stupid flight oh god I’m going to die and if I just grip this armrest hard enough that will somehow make things ok and why are my legs joggling up and down and oh shit what if I die and nobody comes to my funeral and will there even be any remains to be buried when we plummet miles and miles through the air how high do planes even fly, too high is how high, humans aren’t meant to fly we’re not damn butterflies oh shit oh shit and I haven’t even got to look at the window seat man again and now I can’t turn my head because I’ll be sick and he was so pretty and oh god why is the engine making that noise…_

“You do know you’re saying that out loud, right?” OK, then I turned my head. WindowSeatMan looked as if he was trying not to laugh. He looked so relaxed, long legs stretched out, arms resting in his lap. In contrast, I was sitting bolt upright as if good posture might be enough to save us, and my fingernails were gradually embedding themselves in the armrest. I probably looked like a frightened animal, all frozen face and wide eyes, and WindowSeatMan stopped laughing.

“Hey, it’s OK, nothing’s going to happen, just breathe, OK?”

He was holding my hand. I repeat. He. Was. Holding. My. Hand. In a soothing way. He’d unpeeled my vice-like grip, and he was holding my hand with one of his and stroking me with the other hand and it was really distracting. He was still talking, I wasn’t dead yet, maybe we’d be OK. There were no more strange forces pushing me into my seat, so we must have been in the air, but he was still holding and stroking and I was A-OK with that.

“Flying gets some people like that. My best friend, throws up every time. Cars, planes, rollercoasters, boats. Hell, he’d probably get motion sickness from walking too fast. Just the way some people are wired, but it’s OK. Talk to me, tell me, why are you flying to Dubai? Can you tell me?”

“I’m not,” little croaky, but those were words and they made sense and they weren’t just panicky death talk, so that was progress. “Going on to Bali.”

“No way, me too!” He stopped stroking, held out his right hand, “I’m Bucky.” I shook it, introduced myself, and tried to think how I could say ‘please keep stroking me’ without seeming weird. Turns out there’s no way to do that. He let go of my hands.

“So what are you going to Bali for, gotta be something good if you hate flying this much!”

“I don’t hate flying. I just hate taking off. And the thought of crashing to my death.” I gave him a grin, slightly wobbly, but it was better than the panicked stare of a hamster staring down a charging rhino, and he laughed, his mouth curling up at the corners.

And that was how that started. That was how we started to talk. Because I didn’t want to die, because I was going to Bali, because I caught Brock cheating, because I shopped too quickly. See the chain of cause and effect? We talked about London, which I’m from and he’s not. We talked about fears, of which I have plenty and he admitted to a few – heights mostly, and an irrational fear that train doors will open and he’ll be sucked out.

By the time the drinks trolley came around, we were chatting away like old friends. We got drinks. Over-priced, and under-sized, but drinks, and he asked me why I was going to Bali. “I’m going to learn to scuba dive. Because I got drunk on New Year’s Eve.” 

“No way! Kupu-kupu?”

“I’m… sorry, what?”

“Kupu-kupu scuba school?”

“Um, hang on,” I pulled the inventory out of my bag, it was all printed out back in January and I’d long forgotten any details except the fact I was damn well going to do it. “Yes! How did you know?”

He held out his hand again, and I took it puzzled, as he shook hands again. “Bucky Barnes, owner, proprietor, trainer, manager, general dogsbody of Kupu-Kupu Scuba School, Bali.”

I knew we were too high up, but I’d have sworn I saw a butterfly fly past the window.

Eight hours’ flight time to Dubai. We landed in what felt like the afternoon although in that spaced-out, time-zones way, I had no idea what time it was. The flight had flown by (see what I did there!), talking to Bucky. He was American, ex-military, set up the scuba school to get away from some painful memories. I don’t remember what I told him about me, but he didn’t ask to change seats so I guess I kept a lid on the weird.

Then we were landing, and that was almost as bad as taking off because we were heading straight for the ground at speed and that was not a good thing, and maybe the pilot would forget to pull up and… Bucky was stroking my hand again and then we were down and off the plane and I think I remembered to breathe in there somewhere, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

McGettigan’s Irish Pub. Just what you’d expect to find in Dubai. It was evening in Dubai but the tarmac outside the window was still shimmering in the heat. We’d got six hours here – hey, notice how I’m saying ‘we’ now, because somehow we were tagging along together. We’d be flying out around 1am, Dubai time. I didn’t want to leave the airport, too scared of getting lost in the dark, so although it was only afternoon according to my body, we headed to the bar.

Six hours to kill. Six hours of talking. We had burgers, and beer. We had apple pie, and more beer. We giggled at the fact that an English woman and an American man were in an Irish pub in the United Arab Emirates eating Western food, and we had more beer. Somehow we managed to hear our flight announced and we got to the gate and queued up and got on, and we weren’t sitting together. Of course we weren’t. What would be the chances of that? I was four rows behind him, both of us in window seats and I could see his head over the seatback and suddenly all the beer inside me was churning because we were going to have to take off again and what if I threw up and choked on my own vomit and died…

Then there was someone standing at the end of our row, and it was Bucky. He gave the woman sitting in the aisle a killer smile and I could see her pupils widening. Me too, lady, me too.

“I’m so sorry ma’am, I wonder if you’d be willing to swap seats with me, you can have my window seat just ahead. It’s my wife,” he pointed at me and the lady looked at me appraisingly. I tried to look like wife material as he continued, quietly. “She’s not a good flyer, and she’s been drinking. We’ve ended up in separate seats by mistake. I’m the only person who can restrain her if she has a… moment.” He nodded in a ‘sad but brave’ way as the lady looked at me again, and I tried to look like unhinged alcoholic wife material. It was surprisingly easy.

The woman nodded, gathered her stuff and moved away hastily. Bucky plumped himself down with a grin, just in time as the seatbelt light came on. As we settled in, he reached out and picked up my hand.

So a cheat, led to a resolution, led to, well, what came next. I can tell you. I fell asleep. Early start, long flight, nerves, beer, more beer, more beer. I woke up hungover and peeled my eyelids up to find I was resting on a broad warm shoulder, with someone’s head leaning on mine. I sat up with a jerk, and realised it was Bucky, just as he fell sideways into me then bolted upright, before grabbing his head and groaning.

“Oh shit, I feel like I’ve had my head trapped in a vice. I feel like I’ve _died_. Oh gooooddddd.”

I would have answered sympathetically but I was too busy trying to evict the marching band who had taken up residence in my skull. I closed my eyes and hoped that the plane would crash soon so that I could die. It didn’t. The one time you want it to. Selfish, I call that.

So then we were landing in Bali and it was the afternoon and it was sweltering. When we left the airport, I had to screw my eyes up at first, it was so bright. Once we hoiked our luggage into a taxi and set off, with Bucky naming our destination, suddenly my eyes opened and my nose was pressed against the window, because there was the sea, just there! Blue sea, golden sand, palm trees. Beautiful.

It wasn’t far to the hotel. Bucky got out of the taxi with me, although I knew he had a flat somewhere on the island. I felt hot and unwashed, headachey and grouchy, and I got the feeling he felt much the same, although his face was too damn perfect even so. He gave me a hug, carried my case in, then nodded awkwardly. The shared intimacy of the flight seemed a little out of place in the bright sunshine.

I found my room, took my clothes off, turned on the fan, turned off the light, drank water, too painkillers and slept. Like the dead.

When I woke up, I had no idea what time it was, or what tie my body thought it was. It was dark out, but with my window facing out to sea, there were no lights to see. I stood under the shower and tried to shake off the fug of jetlag, beer, sleep and sweatiness, then when I was dressed, I went out on to the balcony.

Six months ago, just six months, I’d effectively been living with Brock, in all but the paperwork. Four months ago, I’d walked in on him and Sharon. Three months ago, I’d drunkenly booked a scuba trip to Bali. Yesterday, a stranger stroked my hand on a plane. Cause and effect?

I went inside to fetch another bottle of water, then stepped back out onto the balcony. There was a pot out there, bright with blooms against the dark sky. As I stood there, a neon green butterfly landed on the plant, then flew away. As its wings flapped, I heard a knock at the door.

Bucky. Oh god. My heart lurched and something a little lower down in my anatomy did a little dance. 

“Wondered if you wanted to go get dinner?” How could one man be so charming and muscly and handsome? I was staring again, and I’d left too long a pause and then it was awkward and I probably should have answered if only I could remember how.

“Yes!” That’ll do it. Articulate, me. Words and shit.

So we did. There was this restaurant he knew. He steered me through congested streets with a hand in the small of my back and I’m pretty sure that every one of my nerve endings had migrated to that patch of skin because that was all I was aware of. The restaurant had one long table, with benches down both sides, so we squeezed in and he ordered food for us. I know there was rice, and fish, and vegetables, and it was good but my entire right side was on fire where I was pressed up against Bucky and it was hard to pay attention. I gulped down a bottle of water with my food and talked and smiled.

After we’d eaten, somehow we ended up drinking beer again. My liver wasn’t so it was a good idea but my brain wasn’t listening. Then after the beer, things are a little hazy, but we were walking on the beach and the sand was between my toes.

“You’re holding my hand? But we’re not on a plane.” This seemed confusing to me. Confusing but nice. Very nice.

It’s all a little fuzzy but I’m pretty sure he walked me back, both of us swaying slightly, and then waved happily and left, saying something about ‘see you tomorrow.’ Pfft, what’s tomorrow, right?

Tomorrow. Oh yeah. I woke up, and it was tomorrow, and I threw up, and while I was throwing up, I remembered that I had to go scuba diving, and I cried a bit. Luckily the first session wasn’t until nearly lunchtime, going over equipment and rules and safety measures. Bucky looked much too bright eyed and bushy tailed. I felt more like roadkill but I tried my best. There’s a tanky thing, and goggly things, and some suity things. I’ve got this. 

By the time we were getting into the water, I was feeling a bit better. We’d had lunch as a group, and I’d had a lot of water, then it was time to get ready. The sight of Bucky in his wetsuit made me a little light-headed. There were muscles in places I’d never even thought about. Then there were the places I had thought about, and the places that draw your eye, and… mind on the lesson, mind on the lesson.

There were a lot of days like that. Bucky would take me out in the evening and we’d eat out and walk on the beach, then in the day we’d dive, once we were trained. Out under the blue ocean, the waters so clear and bright. Our conversations got closer and deeper and all I wanted to do was to kiss him. But I could hear Nat’s voice in my head, ‘no holiday romances, you’re there for yourself’. What did she know, she’d twisted her ankle at her first ballet lesson and declared resolutions to be stupid. She’d dyed her hair though. And although she’d never learnt Russian, she drank a lot of vodka.

Two days left of the holiday, last day diving. Out under the sea. I liked to pretend I was alone out there, just me, mermaiding it along in my underwater kingdom. I’d been looking up the names of some of the fish, the triggerfish, the sweetlips, and over there, just out of the corner of my eye, was that the butterflyfish? I swam after it, trying to get closer, catching the tiniest glimpse of its tail as it twitched behind a rock and I lost it. I turned back, swimming back to the boat, tired now. Too tired to pay attention really. Too many late nights mooning over Bucky under the Balinese moon. So when I went to grab the ladder, things kinda went awry. The water was choppy, water’ll do that, so rather than smoothly reaching out towards the ladder as it moved towards me, instead I went too far forward, the boat swung towards me and the next thing you know I was lying on the deck, bleeding copiously from a headwound. Glamorous, I know. 

It was nothing too serious, the seawater trickling off my hair made the blood spread far wider than it would have done, and Bucky had been watching us all swim into the boat and saw what happened straight away. He’d pulled me out of the water – those biceps coming in handy – undid my wet suit and pulled it down before I could chill. My head was throbbing but yes, I admit it, having Bucky strip off my clothes was very distracting. He wrapped a towel around me, passed me something to eat, one of his crew keeping an eye on the other divers. When everyone was safely back on board and we were heading back to shore, he came and sat beside me.

“You ok?” I nodded.

“I feel like an arse though. Swam too far looking for a butterflyfish, wore myself out, didn’t pay attention, dumb.” I sighed, feeling sorry for myself as my head throbbed.

“No beer for you tonight, but I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, for missing the butterflyfish.” I looked up at that, and he grinned, then he kissed me on my bruise, and got up to talk to the rest of the group.

Ugh. My head hurt and when I looked in the mirror back at the hotel, I had a nice purple shiny lump with a big gash across it. Stunning. This was all Brock’s fault. If he hadn’t cheated, I wouldn’t have ended up in Bali with a lump on my head. All his fault. If he hadn’t cheated, right now I’d be at home, with Brock criticising me for eating too much and subconsciously making me doubt myself and what I could achieve. Yeah, ok, suddenly the bruise looked less bad.

I didn’t see Bucky that night. I ate in the hotel, and I was in bed by 9, sober for a change. The next morning I was up early and dressed, when there was a knock on the door again. 

There he was. Shorts on. T-shirt. All biceps and smiles and perfection. He was jogging up and down in excitement.

“C’mon, it’s a long drive,” he tugged at my hand as I pulled the door shut behind me. His excitement was infectious, and we both were giggling as we ran down the stairs. There was a hire car outside, and Bucky opened the door, ushering me in before racing around to climb in the driver’s side. We drove outside the city, the landscape green and open around us. Bucky refused to tell me where we were going, so eventually I gave up, sat back, and enjoyed the ride.

“Hey, you ever heard of chaos theory?” I turned my head to stare at Bucky, questioningly. That was an odd conversation starter. “Butterfly effect? Little things can have big effects? Butterfly flaps its wings over there, weeks later, you get a hurricane over here?”

I nodded. I knew what he meant, I just didn’t know why.

“Just think, if you’d shopped slower that day, you’d never have ended up here.”

I’d told Bucky the whole sorry tale one evening over a meal. He’d responded exactly as you’d want someone to respond. Telling me Brock didn’t know a good thing when he had one, that Brock was an idiot. I resisted the urge to encourage him to keep going.

The car suddenly turned off the road and as it did, I saw a sign. ‘Butterfly Park’. Bucky saw me spot it, and grinned. It may have only been ten days, but my heart felt lighter when he smiled. I was flying home in less than 48 hours and trying not to think about that.

When we got out of the car, Bucky held my hand again. We weren’t on a plane and I wasn’t injured, he just held hands because it felt nice. And it did. The butterfly park was beautiful, walking through surrounded by the most amazing colours and movement and sights. But mostly my eyes were on Bucky. The colour of his eyes, the way they glinted when he smiled. The way his lips moved when he talked, the way he pushed the hair off his face, leaving it sticking up in the sun. The way his muscles moved under his t-shirt when he put his arm around me. Then he pulled me up against him and he kissed me, and I felt his stubble against my cheek, and tasted him on my tongue. We stood there a long time, before a group of children ran around the corner and shrieked at the sight of us. 

When we pulled away from each other, Bucky grinned at me, then his eyes flicked to the top of my head. Very gently, he blew on my hair, and as he did so, two butterflies that had landed there, flew away. Somewhere, maybe, there was going to be a hurricane. But not here.

**Author's Note:**

> It was only when I got part way through that I realised that I didn't mean the butterfly effect, it was more a chain reaction.
> 
> But 'butterfly effect' sounds more romantic than 'chain reaction', plus 'butterfly' in Indonesian is a nicer word than 'chain'. Go google it, you'll see where it appears!


End file.
